# 44 OF 45 - THIS HAPPY BOOK REPORT ON PADRE PIO

#44 OF 45 - THIS HAPPY BOOK REPORT ON PADRE PIO

IN PURSUIT OF THE TRUTH - HTTP://WWW.CINOPSBEGONE.BLOGSPOT.COM - MAY 2, 2020

 - THE IMPRISONMENT P. 232- 236 - SELECTED EXCERPTS

 

Preface: God must have had a reason for the existence of St. Padre Pio in today's coronavirus.

 

"Sometimes all celestial comforts seemed withdrawn. When Agostino visited him in November 1931, Pio confided that "Jesus is silent," leading his friend to believe that now "those visions that once brought so much comfort to his spirit have vanished. "Despite being "a bit depressed," Pio insisted that he was ready to submit to the will of the God....

 

Although he could not see them or write to them, some of Padre Pio's spiritual children claimed that he visited them buy bi-location. Padre Agostino was told of such an experience by Sister Benjamina of Florence, who told him that one morning, after she had received Communion, Padre Pio appeared to her, comforted her, and blessed her. With this in mind, Agostino asked Pio, "Do you often make little trips - like, to Florence?" When Pio ignored him, Agostino added, " A nun told me this. Is it true?" "Yes" answered Pio, and that was the end of the matter..

 

In the meantime, Brunatto and Morcaldi were organizing a letter-writing campaign, deluging officials at the Vatican with pleas for the end of Padre Pio's segregation. Moraldi sent to various prominent churchmen The Mysteries of Science in the Light of Faith, a scholarly manuscript prepared by Dr. Giorgio Festa (who had examined Pio's wounds) but which had remained unpublished because of the prohibition by the Holy Office of all publications on Padre Pio.

 

Cardinal Gasparri, recently retired from his post as the Vatican's secretary of state, was impressed and conferred with Dr. Festa. After their conversation, Gasparri used his influence on the Holy Office, which agreed not to put the book on the index. And so Festa's book was published. It was read by several cardinals, who were favorably impressed. ...

 

The loss of the opportunity to minister to the teenaged boys who made up the student body depressed Padre Pio. Moraldi commented bitterly that the Holy Office considered Pio " a noxious Socrates, capable of perverting the fragile lives of boys not yet tempered to monastic discipline. Others vented their wrap, not only on the Holy Office, but on some Padre Pio's disciples, Del Fante and Giovannini roundly reviled...

 

Meanwhile, Morcaldi, through conservative means, was effecting a breakthrough. Gasparri's replacement as papal secretary of state was Eugenio Cardinal Pacelli, who had been apostolic nuncio to Germany... He was in fact a man of great spirituality who had been a close acquaintance of the great Bavarian mystic and stigmatic. Theresa Neumann. In October 193, Morcaldi wrote to Pacelli about "the seraphic little friar," the fame of whose "heroic virtue ... has burst the confines of the little town hidden in the mountains" where he lived. Morcaldi described how "a humanity laden with sufferings ,... bewildered and perplexed," saw in Padre Pio a "ray of light to guide it."

 

Pacelli, it seems, persuaded Pope Pius XI to send a personal representative to San Giovanni Rotondo to observe Padre Pio. It will be recalled that Pope Benedict XV, too, had sent personal representative to interview and examine him. Pius XI, as we have seen had relied solely upon the Holy Office and the advice of personal friends for an assessment of the controversial friar. Even the  apostolic visitations of 1917 and 1928 had not been to investigate Padre Pio. Now, on  March 14, 1933, Pope Pius finally decided to dispatch representatives to visit Padre Pio and report back to him in person. The choice fell upon Monsignor Luca Pasetto and Monsignor Felice Bevilacqua, who had headed the visitation of 1927.

Finally, on July 14, 1933, Pope Pius reversed his ban. An order came from the Holy Office that day directing that Padre Pio be allowed once more to celebrate Mass in public and that he be allowed to hear confessions of the religious within the enclosure.... Even so ... Padre Pio himself, according to Agostino, was "very much consoled" and gave thanks to God rejoicing... As of March 25, 1934, Padre Pio was allowed to hear the confessions of men, and as of May 12 of the same year, he was permitted to hear those of women. Thus, as he neared his forty-seventh birthday, his ministry was once again in full swing.George H. Kubeck